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Mac 10.3 and iPod Classic Fix
Although I am not a mac owner, my uncle is and he just got an iPod classic for his son. As it turns out, if you have Mac OS 10.3.9 and an iPod classic, iTunes refuses to sync to the new iPod and gives an error requiring an upgrade to 10.4 or later. The Mac boards are some help, but it took piecing together a few things to get the iPod Classic to work with 10.3.9. Here’s our outline:
- Have someone format your iPod through iTunes (we went to the SLC apple store)
- Find out your fwid (the SLC apple store was helpful there as well)
- get yamipod and install
- plug in ipod
- tell yamipod that you have a ipod classic
- tell yamipod the fwid
- add songs!
If you don’t have an apple store nearby, I’m not sure what to tell you. Google shows that getting the fwid might be difficult. You also need to have a friend with 10.4 to initialize the iPod.
I can only think of a couple of reasons for the restriction for 10.4. None of them make much sense. Apple wants people to upgrade their OS; Apple worries about the user experience of people taking days to sync their library over USB 1.X and won’t allow it; Apple programmers use a function available only in 10.4 and apple is too lazy to add it to 10.3. With my uncle’s iPod classic playing music and syncing to yamipod running in Mac OS 10.3.9, the restriction is obviously not a hardware problem, but a software restriction put in by apple. Not cool.
Edit: 1/8/2008:
yamipod has a faq on how to find the fwid.
Thanks for your post. This might be useful:
Connect your iPod
From the apple menu (top left of screen) select About this Mac and click More Info
(optional) Select Mini Profile in the View menubar
In the left column select Hardware and then USB
In the USB Device Tree you should see your iPod listed, select it
the FWID is the Serial Number listed in the lower box
It’s worth adding that if your iPod refuses to go into Disk Mode and you hear a noticeable clicking sound the problem might just be corrosion on the HDD cable and will need cleaned periodically.
ipod fix
According to a forum post -obviously the most reliable source- it appears that yamipod does not deal with videos.
http://www.yamipod.com/main/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=1173&forum=3
I personally have not used it with videos, so I wouldn’t know. I would suggest going to yamipod.com and searching through their forums.
Does this also apply to movies that i would like to throw on the ipod as well
I’m guessing the error message you’re seeing is from iTunes. Start yamipod and then plug in the iPod.
If that doesn’t work, I’ll need more information about the steps you’ve taken and the results of each step.
Yamipod has a decent set of installation suggestions, see:
http://www.yamipod.com/main/modules/docs/help/install_macwin.php
Hello! I have ahd the same dilemna and followed your instructions above but when i plug in the ipod, i still get the box that says it needs the upgrade. How do I align the yamipod with the ipod and how do i get my songs from itunes onto the yamipod?
thank you for your help!
Good information here no doubt. It’s too bad I don’t use a MAC. However, I can’t deny that I am absolutely in love with the IPod. Best thing since the telephone..LOL
There’s an initialization process that I don’t fully understand that occurs when you hook an iPod to iTunes for the first time. Most of the forum posts said that the iPod needed to be initialized by iTunes before using a 3rd party program.
As for us, the apple store employee was very helpful and didn’t charge us a cent. He hooked the iPod to his computer behind him and told us to wait 5 minutes. Once the initialization was complete, we asked him for the fwid and he gave it to us.
I couldn’t find a work around to initialize the iPod, so I think you’ll have to find the apple store or a friend with 10.4.8 or greater.
Leave me a comment and let me know if it worked, or if you needed to do something else that I hadn’t mentioned.
–Ben
I get all the other steps but what do you mean by “formatting your iPod through iTunes”? I want to know if I could do it myself or if Apple Store did it would they charge me?